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Monthly Archives: May 2011

Hey, guys. I know, I know, I neglected you yesterday. But here’s a post just to announce the winner of part 3 of the Bye-Bye Borders giveaway. This week I’m not going to do another one, though there are still plenty of books to give away. I have to reorganize the remaining books, and who knows when I’ll get to that.

But for now, the winner of part 3 is…

Ariel 😀

Congrats, chica. Leave me a comment with some kind of contact info, so I can get you your books. (If you don’t comment in a week, I’ll go with the random # generator’s second pick, whose contact info I know I have).

I’ve decided that in order to keep motivated for working out and my weight loss goals, I’d implement a new series. Workout Wednesdays 🙂 I’m just going to detail my workouts for the past week, from Thursday to Wednesday (assuming I’m posting after my workout on Wednesday). Hopefully I can share weight loss info too, instead of plateauing forever.

By the way, is “workout” one word or two? Or maybe it matters what context I’m using it in.

Well regardless of the spelling, here’s my past week’s workouts:

Thursday:

Aqua fitness – 35 minutes of cardio, 10 minutes of abs, and about 10 minutes hitting around a beach ball

Zumba – 50 minutes of dancing. This class seems more ab-oriented, which is great (Yeah, I did 2 different zumba classes ‘cuz I was pretty disappointed with the first)

Tuesday:

Aqua fitness – a variety of cardio and strength moves with gloves on

Wednesday:

Same PT routine as Monday.

In general I’m going to have my first PT routine of the week on Monday with my personal trainer. Then I’ll do the same routine on my own twice more and fill in the rest of the week with classes or something boring like the treadmill.

Can you believe that with a schedule like this, I used to be the girl who hated P.E. I have to admit that having an inhaler has really improved my ability and willingness to workout. Having the personal training once a week to keep my workouts fresh from week to week and then a bunch of fun classes like aqua fitness and zumba really help. In fact, I look forward to working out most of the time. 🙂 Miles away from teenage Sage.

Here’s the third installment of the “Bye-Bye Borders” Book Blowout Extravaganza. The theme is a bit murky here. In fact I’m not sure that with these books, there is a theme. “Realistic” doesn’t really work with Dangerous Angels or Glee, lol. Really, they’re just the books that didn’t fit in with the other themes I made up.

I’ve only read the Glee book so I’ll start with it.

1. Glee: The Beginning (an original tie-in novel for the show) – Enroll early at McKinley High–before New Directions was even a glimmer in Mr. Schuester’s eye. When did Rachel first decide Finn was more than just a jock? When did Puck and Quinn start their secret romance? And how did the fledgling Glee Club function without a fearless leader? Hint: It wasn’t exactly a perfect melody.

Break out the gold stars and refill the slushies: It’s time to find out what happened to all your favorite characters before the show-mance began.

Note: I thought this would be pretty ridiculous, and it was, but the same way Glee is. If you remember the good old days of early Glee and you can deal with Glee without hearing the music (surprisingly, I had just as much fun without the music), you’ll really enjoy this.

2. Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp by C.D. Payne – Youth in Revolt is the journals of Nick Twisp, California’s most precocious diarist, whose ongoing struggles to make sense out of high school, deal with his divorced parents, and lose his virginity result in his transformation from an unassuming fourteen-year-old to a modern youth in open revolt. As his family splinters, worlds collide, and the police block all routes out of town, Nick must cope with economic deprivation, homelessness, the gulag of the public schools, a competitive type-A father, murderous canines, and an inconvenient hair trigger on his erectile response–all while vying ardently for the affections of the beauteous Sheeni Saunders, teenage goddess and ultimate intellectual goad.

3. Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books by Francesca Lia Block – In five luminous novels, acclaimed writer Francesca Lia Block spins a saga of interwoven lives and beating hearts. These postmodern fairy tales take us to a magical Los Angeles, a place where life is a mystery, pain can lead to poetry, strangers become intertwined souls, and everyone is searching for the most beautiful and dangerous angel of all: love.

4. Buck Fever by Cynthia Chapman Willis – Twelve-year-old Joey MacTagert’s dad wants his son to carry on the family tradition of hunting. But Joey has “buck fever”—he can’t pull the trigger on a deer, and hates the idea of killing animals. He’s more interested in art and hockey, two activities that his dad barely acknowledges.

Joey’s dad wants him to use his special skill in tracking to hunt down the big antlered buck that roams the woods near their home. Joey knows how to track Old Buck, but has kept secret from his father the reason he’s gained the deer’s trust. When trouble between his parents seems to escalate, Joey and his older sister, Philly, find themselves in the middle of tensions they don’t fully understand. Joey wants to keep the peace, and if conquering his buck fever will do it, he has to try.

5. Crash into Me by Albert Borris – Owen, Frank, Audrey, and Jin-Ae have one thing in common: they all want to die. When they meet online after each attempts suicide and fails, the four teens make a deadly pact: they will escape together on a summer road trip to visit the sites of celebrity suicides… and at their final destination, they will all end their lives. As they drive cross-country, bonding over their dark impulses, sharing their deepest secrets and desires, living it up, hooking up, and becoming true friends, each must decide whether life is worth living – or if there’s no turning back.

So there are the five books. And you can win ALL FIVE with a song.

– Leave a comment that includes some way to contact you (like an e-mail address or your twitter name). This way I can get in touch if you win

– Leave the title, artist, and genre (just so I’m not surprised) of a song, and give me a description of the story that song tells to you.

Examples:

The Lazy Song – Bruno Mars – pop – A guy just wants to be all lazy today. Nothing wrong with that 😉

Teen for God – Dar Williams – folk – A girl who really believes in God goes to a bible camp where she has to deal with the girls who came from bible schools and are very judgmental. She struggles with temptations, wondering why God even put them there for her. And she laments that in college she’s not even going to believe in God, but for now she’s proud to be spreading His word.

(See, it can be complicated or really simple, up to you)

– You can get an extra entry if you tweet about the contest, so leave your twitter info in that case.

One winner will be chosen at random for each giveaway, which will each have the same entry requirements (but please choose different songs from any earlier giveaways you entered). This contest ends on Saturday, May 7 at 11:59 p.m. I’ll announce the winner on Sunday (Mother’s Day), along with the next giveaway.

I’ve had a pretty tiring week, so I haven’t really posted or set up the next phase of the contest yet, but I did want to announce the winner of the last one. Clearly you all are tired of vampire and werewolf books. But there were a couple of entries, and the winner was: